35 degrees in the shade

Sorry for the delay in this posting - had a slight issue finding a wireless connection at our second location in Spain so had to wait until we were back home....

Anyhows, Friday came and it was time to pack up and move on. We decided to set off early and drove the one hour up the road back north towards Alicante.  We arrived at the new location, just outside Murcia - it was a massive complex - I mean massive!

Apparently there are 9,000 identical apartments at the complex so you can imagine the scale of it.  We arrived at the security gate and registered our details.  We had some directions to our apartment so we thought it would be reasonably straight forward to find - how wrong we were! After about an hour driving around we gave up and headed back to the security gate to ask for help! it turned out our directions were for someone elses apartment! We finally found it and settled in.  The apartment is owned by a friend of mine and it was exactly what we needed.  It was opposite a swimming pool, had an excellent air con system and a superb roof terrace where we ended up spending a lot of time.

As for the complex, it designed in small "jardins" which there were numerous.  Each Jardin had the apartments on all sides of a square with the swimming pool and play areas in the middle of the square.  Each Jardin was identical and they covered a lot of land.  If you have seen the film The Truman Show or been to Celebration Town in Florida you will know what I mean.

Other than the Jardins there was a "Town Centre" which was a massive building, on 4 sides of a square with a large lake in the middle.  The idea was for shops and restaurants to take a spot in the building and turn the area in to the central town area.  Then the recession came! The "town centre" now consists of a supermarket, 1 restaurant and 1 pub.  The rest of the shops are empty.  Don't get me wrong, it still had what we needed but was a shame they couldn't get more into that area.

Anyway, once settled in and unpacked we went for a swim and made ourselves at home.  The weather was still very hot so the air con was much appreciated.

The next few days drifted by with sessions in the swimming pool and on the roof terrace, that was pretty much it - very lazy times, but the kids were happy in the pool so why not?  Over these days we got to know who else was in our Jardin and there were some sights!  My favourite (if you can call it that) was a "lady" who was there with her 2 kids.  I saw the kids first, mainly because they had blocked the sun they were so large! and then came along Mum...... it was a sight believe me - she was very very large indeed and decided it would be a good idea to wear a bikini for the week, she had also been sitting in the sun for far too long as she had turned a very dark brown.  For those of you who are Little Britain fans, just think of the character Bubbles Devere who lives in the health farm.  She was the spitting image of her!

Other than lazing by the pool, we did manage a few trips out, although it was far too hot to do much (it hit 45 degrees one day).  The first of our outings was to a beach that had been recommended to us.  now, I am not a big fan of beaches. Its the sand - the damn sand, it simply gets everywhere! so when we arrived on the beach I was already missing my swimming "sand free" pool.  The beach was crowded as you would imagine so we found ourselves a square inch of sand and laid out our towels. No sooner had I done then the pesky kids walked over them covering them in the grains of evil sand.  We then went for a paddle in the sea before heading back to our towels covered in sand and now salt.  Needless to say, our beach trip lasted for about 1 hour before deciding enough was enough and heading home.

Dont get me wrong beaches can be good.  I have had one good experience on a beach, when we were in Bali staying at a rather nice hotel with its own beach - that's the only way to do it.  We were escorted every morning out to the sun lounger laid out for us, and then issued with fresh towels, a drink and a bottle of sun tan lotion.  Every hour or so a little man would come along and top up our drinks, re do our towels and issue another bottle of sun tan lotion.  Now that's how to do it.

However, this was a million miles away from our operation in Spain.  This consisted of 4 towels and a few spare nappies for Rosie!!  The Spanish have it sorted, they all turn up with pretty much the whole contents of their houses.  They have towels, sun loungers, deckchairs, parasols, toys for the kids, ice boxes for lunch, wind breakers and the kitchen sink! They seem to have fun when they do it and I now know why!

Other highlights from the week included 2 trips to the local water park, which bizarrely has a Zoo attached.  we arrived too early on the first visit so had to wait an hour for the water park to open, we took this opportunity to investigate the Zoo.  It was 10am but already 35 degrees so walking around a zoo was not top of my list of ideal things to do in the sun, but off we went.  It was actually an ok zoo with Bears, Zebra, Giraffe, Pigs, Deer, Ostrich etc etc but after about 30 mins everyone was beginning to wilt in the sunshine so we decided to get to the water park and wait for it to open.  When it finally did we laid our towels out in the shade and headed for the nearest pool to cool off.

The kids loved the water park, it had everything they needed, including a "lazy river" which Emma loved and a few water slides which Megan took a shine to.  Rosie was happy in the kids pool with the mini slides so it all went pretty well.  Only had one small incident.  After climbing up the steps to the top of one particular water slide with Megan, she had a melt down and decided she didnt want to go down the slide.  I had a double inflatable ring on my back and was not looking to walk down the steps with this. There was only one way down so after about 10 mins convincing, Megan decided we could do the slide. I gave her a "its not fast so dont worry" guarantee and off we set.  The slide actually turned out to be a lot faster than I thought so all I could hear as we went down was screams from Megan "its too fast" and "slow it down" but we made out the end ok and then she said she wanted another girl - go figure!

So this was a pretty lazy week, mainly due to the sunshine, I'm not complaining I love the sunshine but there is simply nothing you can do when it is that hot other than stay in the pool. 

Friday came around far too quickly so it was time to head back to the airport and start the journey home.  This all went pretty well, found the airport, dropped the hire car off, checked in, wandered around the shops, boarded the plane (at the front of the queue), took off, had some food.  Then with about 20 mins to go, I spotted out of the corner of my eye and young lad running up the aisle, I thought nothing of it until he stopped next to my seat (i was on the aisle) and decided to throw up all over the place....oh what joy, it splattered up my leg and those of my fellow passengers and, as with all sickness, it then set everyone else off, people wretching everywhere - a nice way to end the holiday! The air hostess arrived with a little "Body Fluid Disposal Kit" which she had clearly never used before to mop up the sick......lovely.  Still could have been worse, prior to throwing up next to me, it turned out that he had already been sick all over the guy sitting next to him!!

Anyway, we made it back to Blighty in one piece with no major issues and a thoroughly good holiday to look back on. 

Next week it is back to normal duties and trying to keep 3 kids entertained.  I will keep you posted on events.  See ya later everyone.